


Ghost Ship

by haearnmouse



Series: Precious Things [5]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haearnmouse/pseuds/haearnmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, that which is broken cannot be mended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghost Ship

They are all mad, Ayel knows.

He does not mean angry when he thinks of this, though he knows it lurks within the madness as well. During the rare moments where he regains control enough Ayel reflects upon the feeling, Earth within him surging to the fore as it is wont to do, steady and strong for the briefest of instants. He understands then that they are all simply driven beyond their means to cope, their inability to find safe haven exacerbated by the fact that their once steady and reliable Heart is no longer there to sustain them.

Lurking in the shadows of the _Narada_ , Nero observes them all, lips curled into a demented parody of the proud and gentle smile he once wore for them all. He owns them still, he who once strove only to care for them. And their souls are damned by his decisions.

Ayel knows in those rare moments that they are all adrift, left without center nor anchor. Their Elements have deserted them, or so they believe, and nothing can save them. Nothing can bring back their loved ones, their people, their world. It is easier to dive into what Nero has left to offer them than to think of all the might have beens and the what ifs. What if they had been just a bit faster. What if they had been there in time.

What if.

The guilt is irrational and one they all know others would tell them to release, in their rare moments of lucidity. But it is all they have left that binds them to their world and so they cling to it, lost children set adrift in a sea they no longer know.

Sometimes, Ayel pauses as he walks the hallways of the ship, the smell of earth and living things thick around him. He knows then that the Elements are there, hovering at the edges, biding their time patiently. It is a comforting feeling, though one which never lasts long. He closes his eyes then and prays to them. They answer in gentle, crooning sounds and promises. They wait for when the madness recedes and when they may slip through the cracks of the insanity Nero has woven around them all, driven through their blood in the inks of their grieving tattoos, hammered through their minds by the weight of his words.

The Elements bide their time around the hidden corners of their minds.

When the time comes, they will not be denied.

~*~

"Cripple it." Nero's voice is broken, the jagged edges with a sick, unrelenting rage driving them all onward with every sound he utters. "Then prepare a boarding party to scavenge it for the materials we need for repairs."

The order is followed, all of them working smoothly as a single unit. The madness that has brought them closer and welded them to Nero in a single perfect unit is reflected in their gestures, in the way they mindlessly cripple the vessel desperately trying to escape them.

Once the vessel no longer moves, the boarding party gathers, Ayel in the lead.

It is not the first time they have done this, he knows.

It is not the last, he believes.

~*~

The ship is nigh deserted, which happens often enough as crews try to find a way to fight back or more rarely escape them that Ayel is unbothered by what would otherwise become a concern.

It is when they find the crew, however, that things change.

Sightless eyes stare upward into absent skies.

Sanity slams into ascendency, harsh and unforgiving. Her grip is fierce, enraged and without mercy. Ayel stares at the small bodies strewn on the deck and keens in numb horror at what they have done. The only thing that keeps him from going straight back into the madness is the Earth avalanching through him, hard and unyielding.

All of them are children. Girls, he notes blankly. Some almost babies still.

_Is this what we have wrought?_

_Is this now all that we are?_

A sound catches his attention, but it is T'sala who moves first, a short, hesitant step. She turns to look at Ayel, eyes wide and uncertain, hands trembling in an echo of the grief bubbling in her throat. The sounds are small and helpless. She is not the only one falling to pieces, another of them crumbling to his knees at the scene before them.

_Elements have mercy upon our souls._

They are all looking at him, Ayel realizes. They have all been dragged back to this world, he realizes, made to face what it is they have been doing since they forsook the Elements' embrace.

Earth's grasp upon him is firm and steady. She will not let him go.

_What have we done?_

"Check for survivors," he murmurs, voice low and unsteady. They need him, he understands. What he never did before, what Nero always was to them, he must become now. The others stagger into motion automatically, moving nearer to him by instinct before spreading out in a smooth flow. The calming influence is from gentle, caring Neda he knows. Water threading through them all, binding their aching souls together gently one by one. Ayel is grateful for the man's presence, the only one among the party able to soothe them so, now that they have regained awareness of who – and what – they are.

Ayel is the first to reach the source of the sound they all heard. Ayel, grieving and shattered, is the first thing the small green-skinned girl sees once the dead body of another child is lifted from hers. The thought nearly breaks his heart all over again. She could be the same age his beloved daughter would have been, had she survived the destruction of their planet. The girl's skin is so grimy he can barely make out the color of it, her hair so tattered and dirty he has no clue as to which element she might be beholden to.

She is not _Rihannsu_.

It does not matter.

They stare at each other for a moment, and finally the child reaches up, knuckles bloodied and stiff, and tries to pat away the tears upon his cheeks, eyes filling with tears of her own.

It is when Ayel realizes she is mourning for him, that the unfathomable sorrow in her eyes is meant for him alone, that he finds himself undone.

The others gather about him slowly and he kneels to gather the whimpering child in his arms gently, weeping uncontrollably as she cries softly and tries to comfort him. Ayel mourns for his people, for hers, and for all the wrongs that have been done since Romulus was destroyed.

Once broken, some things cannot be reforged.

~*~

A forgotten section of the ship is rediscovered for their purpose, its shape determinedly hammered into a suitable living crèche. It is located at the very heart the _Narada_. Though most would consider it an irony, they find it to be a fortuitous symbol instead.

They do not have a world's Air to give her, the small nameless girl whom they rescue and smuggle aboard the _Narada_. They have no real Earth, save for what little that is compressed in the hull that surrounds them. They have no Water, other than that which they can purify through the ship's systems, as worn and tattered as they are becoming.

They give her Fire instead, warm and comforting and cheerful. Duraglass coils to house the Element of her blessing are carefully built, materials scavenged from parts of the ship Nero never ventures to and within a matter of days the girl-child smuggled from one crew member's quarters to another's is brought to her new home.

Eyes fill with wonder and after patting Ayel's cheek one last time, she demands to be set down. Limping still, she wanders through the rooms they have built for her. The first sound she makes since they found her and smuggled her back on the ship is a giggle, happy and not at all shy.

She lifts one hand towards the Fire dancing through the shimmering coils winding their way on the ceiling and sways to its crackling, the Element reflected bold and wild in the short curls of her hair. Though they cannot give her a world's sky, they have wrought a starfield of their own devising for her. Another hand goes up as well, and despite her wounded leg, the girl starts to dances gleefully with the Fire overhead, laughter ringing brightly through the room.

They cannot keep her long, they know.

Ayel's lips hover on the edge of a smile, nonetheless. He cannot truly smile – does not know if he will ever be able to – but his expression lightens for a moment. The others gather about them, keeping close. They no longer feel so lost to him. Nero's madness has receded, does not have the same hold upon any of them such as it once had. Though the Elements have forsaken him, they will not leave Nero to die alone of his insanity. He is their brother, and they will follow him – gladly and as sanely as they can manage it – into whatever he leads them. They are broken and still a bit mad, but no longer do they give in to Nero's siren call for forgetfulness. What they do, they do for his sake. And they choose to be aware of their choice, as they set upon a path which will damn their souls.

They do this in the knowledge that their hopes and dreams have a new home. The knowing of this comforts them, in spite of what lies in their own futures.

"Kaevra."

_Heart._

He nods at the name they have chosen for her. All that is good and honorable within them will fly for a brighter future with this girl child. What she will leave behind will be of no consequence.

When Nero falls into one of his darker delusions, locking himself in his quarters for what is likely to be weeks, Ayel inputs new coordinates in the computer's navigation system.

~*~

"Wait. You mean, she just materialized right in the middle of the playroom?"

"Yep. We're not exactly a high security outpost, not like we keep shields up on everything..."

The male (Andorian) and the female (Tellarite) stare at each other then down at the small girl looking up at them, anything but solemn. She bounces in place and smiles widely (and goofily, the Andorian thinks) and the bright red curls of her hair move even more than she do, impossibly so.

She has nothing with her save the clothes she is wearing, and the smile she gives so easily to everyone else at the orphanage, child and adult alike.

"Huh. Well. She's Orion, all right."

"...what gave that away?" The comment's tone is withering and everything the Andorian is used from his administrative co-worker. He gives her a crooked grin and shrug, one antenna bobbing briefly in a meaning she refuses still to admit understanding of. He knows she'll let him off the hook so long as he doesn't rise to the challenge. She grumbles and does not smile back at the child. Quite. "Idiot. Right, let's call it in. Her species is on the list we have to notify Star Fleet about."

"You mean..."

"Yeah. If slavers are about, we need to see if there are more to free."

They do not comment to each other about how she obviously hasn't been mistreated recently. They do not reflect about how unlikely it is that any slavers will be found, or about how she must be a sole survivor, delivered to them by illegals which likely wish to remain unnamed. They go about their business, leaving the clearly unperturbed child to fend for herself.

Kaevra steals her way outside and gazes up at the stars high above.

Their Fire is distant but no less bright and she raises her arms upwards, and dances.

She will not forget, she promises them silently.

She will never forget.

~*~

She is still very young when they give her into the care of the Federation. As children are wont to do, she forgets the faces of her anonymous rescuers within a year and the sound of the name they gave her within two. The new name she chooses for herself years later, upon being granted Federation citizenship isn't quite the same, but it is close enough she hopes.

She never forgets the Fire or how a simple smile can drive even the damned away from the edge from a moment.

And one day, finally, she finds her way to the stars once more.

~*~

What are the odds, Ayel thinks. How slim are the chances that they should meet again like this. That he should pick up her reading among so many others.

A sole Orion female on a Star Fleet ship.

He shares the data to the rest of the crew, all save Nero, brooding darkly in the shadows wrapped around him. Ayel does not need to tell the others what to do.

The shot does not pierce through the ship's core as others have during this fight. Instead, the ship is crippled and left adrift. Nero is easily distracted by more combative prey in the following moments, and they move on deeper into the battlefield.

Ayel does not smile, though his expression lightens for the barest of instants. They continue on their path, and though there is no joy in their hearts, there is no despair either.

Even now, it seems, as they cast their souls to Nero's madness yet again, the Fire of their Heart sneaks back to them and gives them a chance to do one last right amidst all the wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> This piece heavily draws from Diane Duane's Rihannsu series in regards to Romulan society & beliefs.


End file.
